Comments On: McGinn 520 Report: State Plan Creates Insurmountable Obstacles for Ever Building Light Rail on Bridge, but, by Adjusting Plans Now, "Light Rail Could Be a Reality"
by Dominic Holdenhttp://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/04/06/mcginn-520-report-state-plan-creates-insurmountable-obstacles-for-ever-building-light-rail-on-bridge-but-by-adjusting-plans-now-light-rai
Comments On: McGinn 520 Report: State Plan Creates Insurmountable Obstacles for Ever Building Light Rail on Bridge, but, by Adjusting Plans Now, "Light Rail Could Be a Reality"
by Dominic Holdenen-usCopyright 2016 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger.webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster)Fri, 09 Dec 2016 00:00:01 -0800Fri, 09 Dec 2016 19:15:00 -0800Foundationhttp://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
1. It would be far more efficient to serve the corridor with more buses than light rail any time in the next 20 years. perhaps longer. Want more people out of their cars in the corridor to reduce carbon emissions? Better to go with more buses that deliver people to dispersed job centers on the Eastside and Seattle.

2. No one believes that doing what the Seattle Mayor wants will prevent a lawsuit from the Montlake Area crowd. The same people crowing about light rail now have a track record of delay tactics that have already produced enormous cost increases for the project. Why give them more time to raise money to rack up bills for the rest of us - better to focus the money and resource to deliver light rail from Ballard to West Seattle, for instance.

3. McGinn has not cultivated relationships with other political leaders in the region, which is necessary to be an effective Mayor. He has communicated hostility to the interests of other places, as opposed to mutual respect. For all his faults, Mayor Nickels demonstrated how to lead effectively in the region by delivering light rail to more places a couple of years ago. McGinn is no match. I could care less what any politician is FOR. The true test is their ability to DELIVER. Otherwise, why waste time and resource?

4. The McGinn plan is for a larger bridge, 10 feet wider. That's risky for the environment and needs a lot more study. Plus, once you make the bridge wider, you open up the possibility for more highway lanes. Better to keep the width limits in place in the law right now. (You might need a special session of the legislature to change things, and McGinn has demonstrated zero effectiveness in Olympia, so good luck.)

5. These new bridges McGinn is proposing to and through the UW and over the shop canal and go through environmentally sensitive areas and would likely kill birds and fish.

6. Giving an ineffective Mayor more time to become more effective endangers getting a new bike and pedestrian trail across the lake, a 25% increase in transit on the corridor next year, faster and far more attractive transit, vanpool and carpools across the bridge by removing today's bottlenecks, oh, and the bridge is in really bad shape. The Mayor is also calling for continued pollution of Lake Washington from continued runoff from a badly designed bridge - the new bridge will make for a cleaner Lake.

There's more. It would be nice to see some reporting that is comprehensive on about such major investment. What we're getting seems to be written by PR agents and regurgitated as reporting, on all sides of the issue. It would be great to see some real hard nosed examination of all this stuff.

Posted by CarbonBuster]]>
Wed, 07 Apr 2010 08:06:10 -0700The Stranger
The BRT advocates are spot-on. Now that light rail is established and we do know what standards to use for that service, outfitting the bridge for future light rail as monies are secured to cover capital costs is a lot less of a guessing game than it was for the tunnels. The preliminary electrical connections, for example, can be integrated into the original design for a lot less than an after-the-fact retrofit.

BRT, meanwhile, is extremely cost-effective to initiate and, at the end of its service life, can be phased down or even re-deployed as rolling stock elsewhere for another BRT line (which too could upgrade to LRT when the time is ready). It's all about ridership thresholds.

now with rss feed!
Posted by Cale]]>
Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:59:40 -0700The Stranger
Posted by laterite]]>
Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:32:07 -0700The Stranger
Posted by Max Solomon]]>
Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:29:02 -0700The Stranger
Or there is monorail technology, which would at least be good for a downtown to Microsoft route. It would not only be separate from traffic, it would be above it, and could be done in a way that would decrease the width of the bridge, or leave room for HOV lanes, as well as pedestrian lanes.
Posted by Tingleyfeeln]]>
Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:25:20 -0700The Stranger
The chair of the House Transportation Committee is Eastside representative Judy Clibborn, who took large campaign donations in 2008 from, among others: Street Pavers PAC, Trucking Action Committee, Washington Asphalt Pavement Assn PAC, Washington State Auto Dealers PAC, Washington Aggregates and Concrete Assn PAC, and more. Gee, wonder why she's trying to put the brakes on transit options in favor of more roads?
Posted by Mason]]>
Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:15:20 -0700The Stranger
The chair of the House Transportation Committee is Eastside representative Judy Clibborn, who took large campaign donations in 2008 from, among others: Street Pavers PAC, Trucking Action Committee, Washington Asphalt Pavement Assn PAC, Washington State Auto Dealers PAC, Washington Aggregates and Concrete Assn PAC, and more. Gee, wonder why she's trying to put the brakes on transit options in favor of more roads?

Posted by Mason]]>
Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:13:12 -0700The Stranger
I've become convince that the Common Wisdom around here is extremely Wrong. Therefore, I've created a breakthrough Masterplan for Washington State that is being explored here: